[734] This letter, respecting which I confess that I find some difficulties, possesses a history of its own. On the 13th of Ventôse, in the second year of the republic, the original was sent to the national convention, which, the next day, ordered its insertion in the official bulletin, and its preservation in the national library, as emanating "from one of the Neros of France." See App. to Journal de Lestoile, ed. Michaud, pt. i., p. 307, 308, and the revolutionary bulletins.
[735] "Ut sese Montalbani cum Vicecomitibus conjungerent, et sperantes Andium, dum se persequeretur, ab San-Jani oppugnandæ instituto destiturum." De statu rel. et reip., iii. 365.
[736] See Soldan, iii. 372, 373; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 317, etc.
[737] With his usual inaccuracy, Davila speaks of Saint Jean d'Angely as "excellently fortified" (Eng. trans., p. 166).
[738] This number, given by Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 313, and by De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 242, seems the most probable. La Popelinière swells it to near 10,000 (Soldan, ii. 375), while Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10, reduces it to "over 8,000." Strange to say, Jean de Serres, who, writing and publishing this portion of his history within a year after the conclusion of the third civil war, almost uniformly gives the highest estimates of the Roman Catholic losses, here makes them about 2,000, or lower than any one else.
[739] Agrippa d'Aubigné, who was generous enough to appreciate valor even in an enemy, calls him "celui qui entamoit toutes les parties difficiles, à qui rien n'estoit dur ny hazardeux, qui en tous les exploits de son temps avoit fait les coups de partie" (i. 312). Lestoile in his journal (p. 22, Ed. Mich.) affirms that he was killed just as he had uttered a blasphemous inquiry of the Huguenots, where was now their "Dieu le Fort," and taunted them with his having become "à ceste heure leur Dieu le Faible." "Le Dieu, le Fort, l'Éternel parlera," was the first line of a favorite Huguenot psalm.
[740] On the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, see J. de Serres, iii. 369, 370; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 311-313; De Thou, iv. 238-242; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that Davila, bk. v., p. 166, knows nothing of any treachery on the part of the Roman Catholics, but duly mentions that De Piles did not observe his promise.
[741] Davila, bk. v. (Eng. tr., p. 163 and 167); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 250. Gabutius, in his life of Pius V., transcribes the exultant inscription, dictated by the pontiff himself (§ 126, p. 648), and claims for the canonized subject of his panegyric the chief credit of the victory. According to him the Italians were the first to engage with the heretics, and the last to desist from the pursuit.
[742] Davila, bk. 5th (Eng. tr., p. 167); Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 591.
[743] "L'hiver arriva, il fallut mettre les troupes en quartier; et le fruit d'une victoire si complette, l'effort d'une armée royale si formidable, fut la prise de quelques places médiocres, pendant que La Rochelle, la plus utile de toutes, restoit aux vaincus, et que les princes rétablissoient les affaires, à l'aide d'un délai qu'ils n'avoient point osé se promettre." Anquetil, L'Esprit de la ligue, i. 317.